Detailed stress analysis of a twill orthogonally woven textile composite

A finite element analysis framework that leverages high-performance computing was used to analyze a twill orthogonally woven textile model. Boundary conditions for uniaxial tension along the warp direction were applied to a large analysis region, and an interior subregion was used for investigating the stress distributions. The locations of severe stresses were investigated for the binders, wefts, warps, and matrix, respectively, and the connection of the stress state to the surrounding tow architecture was discussed. It was shown that the highest stresses developed in the binders where the path of a binder changed direction, due to a transfer of load to nearby wefts that induced a severe shear stress in the binder. Additionally, severe stress concentrations were observed in both the wefts and binders where the binders traversed the thickness of the textile and came near a weft. The magnitude of the concentration in the binders closely matched across similar locations. On the other hand, the concentrations in the weft appeared to be sensitive to the faceted surfaces of the tows, which sometimes resulted in sharp edges, but these stress the concentrations in the wefts did remain localized. In the warps, the normal stress in the direction of the load was the largest, but the most severe stress state was shown to occur in a very small region where warps came close to binders as the path of the binder transitioned.